


Prague Spring

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-29
Updated: 2006-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows that he didn't exactly plan this trip very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prague Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kristi.

John knows that he didn't exactly plan this trip very well. Backpacking around Europe alone during winter vacation is probably not the best idea he's ever had, especially not given what his father refers to as his alarming propensity to get into trouble. So far, he's managed to misplace his passport, to miss the sleeper train to Warsaw, to end up on Charles' Bridge trying to impress a couple of very uninterested Ukrainian tourists, and (_very smooth, Sheppard_) to end up in the Vltava shortly thereafter.

It's also probably not a good idea to be sitting outside on the ground like this, in short sleeves and jeans with holes worn at the knees from age and wear. The winter moon is a hollow sliver in the sky, and the cobblestones underneath him are hard and colder than cold. John, born in Nevada and raised in a series of air force bases that never strayed too far south or north from the curve of the equator, where the days are full of sleepy warmth and the nights are things of humid weight, isn't used to nights like this, nights where he can see his breath hang in the air in front of him. He's dimly aware that when he stands up, his legs will protest numbly and his knees will be stiff.

He is slightly more aware that he doesn't care about that, and that he doesn't care because he's kind of really, terribly, horribly drunk.

Besides, right now, he's comfortable where he is, legs kicked out in front of him, back resting against the wall of the bar that kicked them out hours ago when they were nowhere near as drunk as they are now. He's got the fingers of one hand curled loosely around the neck of a bottle of sweet, dark Czech beer, the name of which he can't even begin to pronounce when he's sober ("_Vikl— Vel— Velaka— " "Is beer, John. Just say beer_.") but that he likes anyway. He takes sips of it every now and again, savouring the heavy weight of it in his stomach, the way it warms his blood and makes him ignore his still damp clothing, the way it loosens his tongue.

The fingers of the other hand are flying through the air, tracing broad arcs and wider circles as he describes the way things are back in the States. Football and ferris wheels, SAT tests and apple pie, surfing and Monty Python movies, the Christmas celebrations back home that he's not really missing right now. It's the ocean he keeps coming back to, though, the colour of the Pacific at six in the morning when the waves are just right and the rising sun is so close, the sting and burn of salt in your nose and throat when your board kicks up beneath you.

John likes the ocean.

It's dark enough that even at this distance, John can't really see the person slumped next to him very well. Even so, he can tell that Radek's gaze is fixed on him while he talks with an intensity that surprises him a little bit, given how much they've had to drink. He's not sure whether that means Radek's a lot more sober than he is, and that he really is that cheap of a drunk; or whether the other boy is really that fascinated with what he's saying; or whether his shaky English means that he's just having to focus to keep up with what John's saying now that the late hour and the large amounts of alcohol are making his words blur together.

"Anyway, that," John finishes, "is why spring break, surfing and clowns should not be mixed, ever. And not with that much blue jello." He jerks the bottle in his hand for emphasis, droplets of beer spattering onto his t-shirt, soaking into the thin cotton.

"I will keep that in mind when next I am surfing," Radek says wryly.

"You really should," John nods solemnly, then catches the look on Radek's face. He pulls himself up out of his slouch, stares at the other boy. "You've never been surfing?" John's only known Radek for a few hours ("_Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to speak English, would you? Could you show me the way back to my hostel? I've never been good at finding my way around cities._"), but he's pretty sure that this single fact has to have been the biggest tragedy of the other boy's life.

Radek gestures at the square around them, the deserted cobblestones and the pastel-coloured houses and the great shadow of the clock tower across from them, at the invisible bulk of miles of houses and shops and buildings beyond them. "I live in middle of city, in completely landlocked country. Opportunities for surfing, they are not exactly many."

John thinks that's the saddest thing he's ever heard.

"Actually, for me, opportunities for surfing are zero, since I have never seen sea."

And we have a new winner, ladies and gentlemen.

"That is the saddest thing I've ever heard."

Radek slips him a glance sideways through his glasses. "Truly, your life must be lacking in tragedy."

"You'd think so," John says morosely, as he peers down the neck of the bottle in the vain hope that more beer has materialised in the five minutes since he drank the last of it. "But too many clowns make for tragedy... You've really never seen the sea?"

Radek shakes his head, finishes off his beer. "Never."

"Man," says John, "Prague is the worst city I've ever been to."

That makes Radek laugh. "Clearly," he says, "You have never been to Moscow."

"No surfing?"

"No surfing," Radek says darkly, "but oh so much of the borscht and Russians and KGB. KGB is worst, though, worse even than borscht. All they are thinking of is how to build bombs." He snorts. "As if I could not build nuclear bomb at age of nine, is project for children. Besides, am much better occupied working on theoretical side."

"You're studying math in university?"

"I teach physics in Univerzita Karlova, Charles University," Radek answers, gesturing back in the direction of the river. "Is part of my doctorate. Teaching is least interesting part of course. I am much more interested in string theory." He looks back up doubtfully at John. "Which of course, you have ever heard of."

"No, no," says John, "Strings of Planck length at resonant frequencies, right?"

That's just enough encouragement to make Radek's eyes light up and he's off talking a mile a minute about fermions and electromagnetism and supersymmetry. John can only follow about half of what he's saying—he's less theoretical and more practical, really, he's the guy who builds the bombs and might even one day fly the planes that carry them—but he listens anyway. He leans his head back against the wall behind him, listens to Radek talk and talk, watches his hands form symbols and shapes that mean _this is the shape and weight of the universe_, watches the way his lips curve when he smiles, until the sun starts to come up.

He sits there and thinks, maybe he's not so bad at planning after all.


End file.
